In Brazil exists a law that doesn’t allow the officially use of the word “leprosy”. The illness is known as “hanseniase”
In Brazil exists a law that doesn’t allow the officially use of the word “leprosy”. The illness is known as “hanseniase” or disease of Hansen. They say it is a way of avoiding discrimination in people who suffer from it. The World Health Organization (WHO) defends the position that early case detection and treatment of leprosy with MDT will lead to the elimination of leprosy by quickly rendering persons noninfectious (8). However, it is not known to what extent the prevalence of leprosy needs to be reduced to lead to a reduction in the incidence of the disease. Likewise, it is not known whether the incidence can be reduced when the prevalence is below 1 per 10 000 (9). Furthermore, evidence that MDT reduces the incidence of leprosy is lacking, and it is not easy to disentangle the effects of policies based on MDT from other confounding factors (10). This has nurtured a lively debate in the literature, with arguments against the expectation that MDT will reduce the incidence of leprosy (11). The belief that leprosy can be eliminated with this strategy is based on hypothesis rather than on evidence. Considering that the impact of a leprosy control program is also determined by its coverage, by operational factors (12) and by the existence of hidden cases, it is doubtful that control based mainly on case detection and treatment will have an impact. on the incidence of leprosy. Therefore, it is questionable whether leprosy can be eliminated through case detection and treatment in Brazil.
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